Day 9: The Infant Jesus

The ninth and last day of the Saint Andrew Christmas Novena closes with the Catholic devotion that runs through every previous day in the spirit of the prayer: the adoration of the Infant Jesus. The whole novena has been preparation for this adoration. The Lord, born at midnight in Bethlehem, lying in a manger, is the same Lord we now adore in the closing day of the novena. Today we kneel, with the shepherds and with the Magi, before the Infant Jesus.

Today's prayer (recite fifteen times)

Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. In that hour vouchsafe, O my God, to hear my prayer and grant my desires, through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of His blessed Mother. Amen.

Today's meditation

The Catholic devotion to the Infant Jesus is one of the most ancient of Christmas devotions. The institution of the Christmas crèche (the manger scene set up in churches and homes during the Christmas season, with figures of Mary, Joseph, the Christ Child, the shepherds, the animals, and later the Magi) was begun by Saint Francis of Assisi at Greccio in 1223 and has spread to every Catholic country since. The Catholic tradition has produced countless particular devotions to the Infant Jesus across the centuries, including the Infant of Prague (the wooden statue of the Christ Child venerated at the Carmelite Church of Our Lady Victorious in Prague), the Santo Niño devotion of the Spanish-speaking Catholic world, and the Bambinello tradition of the Italian Catholic communities.

The Catholic theological foundation of these devotions is the doctrine that the Infant Jesus is fully and truly the Eternal Word, the Son of God, the second Person of the Most Holy Trinity. The Catholic faithful do not adore a baby in addition to adoring God; they adore God in the Person of the Infant Christ. The doctrine, definitively articulated at the Council of Ephesus (AD 431) in the definition of Theotokos (Mother of God) for the Blessed Virgin Mary, undergirds every Catholic Christmas devotion.

The proper Catholic Christmas disposition is therefore not sentimental nostalgia about a baby in a manger but the act of adoration of the Lord God in the form of an Infant. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14).

Today's intention and act of thanksgiving

Bring to the Infant Jesus for the last time in this novena your principal intention. Whatever the visible state of the matter at the close of these nine days, give thanks for the grace of the Advent contemplation that the novena has worked in your soul.

A traditional Catholic act of adoration of the Infant Jesus:

Divine Infant Jesus, I adore You. Through the prayers offered through these nine days, I commit my intention finally to Your hands. Bless me with Your peace this Christmas. Bless my family. Bless the Catholic Church and the world. Make me an instrument of Your love among those who do not yet know You. May the joy of the Mass at Midnight be the foretaste of the joy of seeing You face to face in the eternal Kingdom. Amen.

Reflection

The Catholic spiritual writers have observed that the Christmas devotion is, like every Catholic devotion, intended to extend beyond the feast day itself into the rest of the year. The Lord who comes at midnight is the same Lord who is present every day in the tabernacle of every Catholic parish, in the souls of the faithful in the state of grace, in the persons of the poor in our own city, in the words of the Sacred Scriptures we read each day. The Christmas crèche set up in the home or the parish each year is a particular Catholic intensification of the contemplation of the Lord's presence; but the Lord is no more present in the crèche on Christmas Day than He is in the tabernacle on a Tuesday in February.

The Saint Andrew Christmas Novena, completed today, is the Catholic preparation for Christmas, but Christmas itself is the preparation for a year of Catholic life under the Lord whose coming we have been awaiting. Many Catholics keep the simple invocation Divine Infant Jesus, I trust in You as a daily prayer through the Christmas season and into the rest of the year. The cumulative effect over many Christmases is the gradual formation of the soul in the eternal childhood of God before the eternal Father, the disposition that Saint Therese of Lisieux called the Little Way and that the Saint Therese Novena Day 4 treats more fully.

Conclusion of the novena

For other Christmas and Advent devotions in the Catholic tradition, see the novenas hub and the Joyful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary. For the broader theological context of the Incarnation, see Mary, Mother of God and the Apostles' Creed.

Closing

Conclude with the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be, prayed slowly with attention to the Christmas mystery.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men. Amen.